is where
their predecessors used to sit two hundred years ago, before Aurangzeb
tore down the holy Hindu temple of Siva and erected the mosque in its
stead.

[Sidenote: Yields before a persistent obtruding influence.]

[Sidenote: _E.g._ British influence.]

But Indian conservatism is more than an indisposition to effort and
change; for the same reason, it is also an easy adaptation to things as
they are found. When a new disturbing influence obtrudes from without,
and persistently, it may be easier to give way than to resist. British
influence is such a persistent obtrusion. In English literature as
taught and read, in Christian standards of conduct, in the English
language, and in the modern ideas of government and society, ever
presented to the school-going section of the people of India within
their own land, there is such a continuous influence from without. The
impression of works like Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ or _Idylls of the
King_, common text-books in colleges, the steady pressure of Acts of the
British Government in India, like that raising the marriage age of
girls; the example of men in authority like Lord Curzon, during whose
vice-regal tour in South India there were no nautch entertainments; the
necessity of understanding expressions like "general election" and
"public spirit," and of comprehending in some measure the working of
local self-government--all such constant pressure must effect a change
in the mental standpoint. The army of Britain in India, representative
of the imperial sceptre, has now for many years been gathered into
cantonments, and its work is no longer to quell hostilities within
India, but only to repel invaders from without. Other British forces,
however, penetrating far deeper, working silently and for the most part
unobserved, are still in the field all over India, effecting a grander
change than the change of outward sovereignty. "Ideas rule the world,"
and he who impresses his ideas is the real ruler of men.

[Sidenote: Indian conservatism overpowered otherwise.]

Telling against Indian conservatism or inertia are other things also
besides persistent Western influences. Many things Western appeal to the
natural desire for advancement and comfort, and the adoption of these
has often as corollary a change of idea. To take examples without
further explanation. The desire for education, the key to advancement in
life, has quietly ignored the old orthodox idea that education in
S